


the ones who had loved her the most (never wanted to leave)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: the odds were never in our favor [6]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, And are in the QQ together, Blood, Character Death, Dark, Lots of it, Quarter Quell, Sad Ending, Survivor Guilt, as fucking dark as I can write, from my HG AU, literally a series of short studies in how each of them would have won the QQ, the hargreeves siblings are former victors, the worst possible ending, this is what fucking happens when you read HG fanfic, which means lots of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 07:16:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19436569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: There is a universe in which Five doesn’t make a deal with the Rebellion, where they go into the 75th Hunger Games with no plan and no way out, where each and every member of this alliance knows that there are many ways to get to the ending, but only way that the Games win.Yes, every one of them is a Victor. Every one of them has a chance at surviving this Arena.But only one of them can make it out.(All of the different ways that the Quarter Quell could have been won or lost by the Seven.)





	the ones who had loved her the most (never wanted to leave)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Jenny of Oldstones" by Florence + the Machine, which I wrote this entire fic to.
> 
> Also, quick background for this story (plus character ages, which kinda shocked me going into this on a couple of accounts when realizing what their current ages were):
> 
> District 1: Allison, won the 67th Games by forming alliances and backstabbing everyone (won at age 15, is now 23)  
> District 2: Luther, won the 65th Games by brute strength and utilizing the metal spikes that rained from the sky at night (won at 17, is now 27)  
> District 3: Five, won the 71st Games by using the mines around the Cornucopia to take out the entire Career pack ont he second day (won at age 12, is currently 16)  
> District 5: Vanya, won the 73rd Games by manipulating the power source on the tundra-like Arena to divert all warmth to her (won at age 15, is now 17)  
> District 8: Ben, oldest Victor among 7, won the 58th Games by feeding his female partner poison berries and strangling a girl to death while feverish and delirious (won at age 16, is now 33)  
> District 8: Klaus, won the 69th Games by hiding and sneaking around in the cave-Arena at night, waited for mutts to take out all competitors (won at age 16, is now 22)  
> District 10: Diego, won the 63rd Games by the use of his knife and knowledge of weak spots on a body (won at age 17, is now 29)
> 
> Also, Katniss won the 74th Games on her own, as Peeta was not Reaped. For more background info about how she won, check out the story "we'll never get free (lamb to the slaughter)."

_Golden child,_

_Lion boy;_

_Tell me what it’s like to conquer._

_Fearless child,_

_Broken boy;_

_Tell me what it’s like to burn._

**_\- oh darling, even rome fell_ // [p.s.](http://smolbane.tumblr.com/) **

There is a universe in which Five doesn’t make a deal with the Rebellion, where they go into the 75th Hunger Games with no plan and no way out, where each and every member of this alliance knows that there are many ways to get to the ending, but only way that the Games win.

Yes, every one of them is a Victor. Every one of them has a chance at surviving this Arena.

But only _one_ of them can make it out.

**Diego**

Going into the Games, Diego knows he can shoulder the guilt of killing- he’s been doing it for fucking years, over a decade, by this point. He knows the familiar weight of death, of failure (because surviving the Games has never been a victory, no matter what the Capitol says) upon his shoulders.

But it’s not him that makes the first kill. No, it’s Ben, who kills Five, the most dangerous of their fellow tributes, for Klaus. All of them know he does it for Klaus, because he wants Klaus to make it out, because if it's between Ben and Klaus, Ben will never choose himself.

And after that, well, Diego makes the mercy kill. He kills Ben. And then Luther. Allison kills Klaus, her best friend, and then Vanya, and it is only the two of them left.

And then, together, the last two killers of their allyship, they use their knives (so precious, so horrifying, so monstrous) to take down all the rest of the Victors in the Games.

And then, well, they’d fought on that cliff face, and-

Diego is the survivor, now. The final survivor. The final, ultimate Victor.

(And he will never, ever have enough tally marks to cover the amount of guilt and pain and grief that he is currently feeling.)

**Ben**

Ben’s plan is always, always to get Klaus out, to make sure that Klaus is the last one standing- or, at least, that Klaus survives longer than he does. In any world, in any time, his life in this Arena is dedicated to making sure that Klaus survives. And in most worlds, that's what happens.

But that plan goes shot to all hell when Klaus dies first.

It’s the stupidest thing in the world- Klaus doesn’t know how to swim. Never has had to, having lived in a landlocked District and then in the Capitol. Ben did it as part of training his year (just in case, his mentor had said, reminding him of how she herself had won her games, played on the edge of a lake) and thus he can, but Klaus can’t.

So there’s a flood the second day that sweeps through their camp, and Vanya and Klaus both die, despite everyone else’s efforts, and suddenly Ben’s left with the decision to win for Klaus’ memory or to die to save his family.

(And Ben has always been a selfish creature, a mad creature.)

Ben knows how to use a blade. He knows how to betray people. (He knows how to poison people.)

His allies- his family- keep on dying, some from accidents, some from each other, but nearly all of them with poison on their lips from berries that he’d fed them.

He wants them all to go gentle, but sometimes that’s just not an option. Klaus didn’t go gentle, after all. Vanya didn't, either. He wasn't able to save Klaus, wasn't able to spare Vanya such a horrible death.

Allison is speared in the back by Finnick's trident. Five, tiny and bitter and explosive, is shot in the back by Katniss' arrows.

But everyone else- it's the poison that gets them, in the end. Diego and Luther and even Katniss and Haymitch, who Ben convinces to ally with them- they all die of various poisons.

(In training, in front of the Gamekeepers, Ben had showed off his knowledge of plants. He'd earned a nine. Guess the Gamemakers got that piece of foreshadowing wrong.)

After it all, Ben returns to Eight, alone, and soon becomes a ghost haunting the house that he, Klaus, and Dave shared only a few years ago. He is the only one left, now, the final member of their fucked-up, broken family of killers still left alive.

(Ben never speaks a word aloud again.)

**Luther**

Luther always knew that this is how the Games would end, with him and Diego- his best friend, his confidante, his brother in all but name- facing each other down in a duel at the end. Everyone else has already died- a few by Diego and Luther’s weapons, a few by other Victors outside of their group- and it is now just the two of them.

And the duel is bloody and disgusting and horrible, and Luther hates every second of it.

One of Diego's knives catches in Luther's shoulder and the other grazes Luther's cheek, and Diego's a killer and Luther's a killer and he knows, deep down, that their friendship doesn't matter, not in this Arena. Not with only one of them making it out.

Eventually Diego gets Luther pressed up against a cliff face, and there is only a split second of hesitation from Luther's closest friend, but it's enough. 

“I’m sorry,” Luther gasps out, feeling the blood in his mouth, and he sinks his axe into Diego’s stomach. Diego keels over, eyes left open wide in death, and Luther is the Victor- the ultimate Victor, having won the Games of Victors- and all he wants is to die himself.

Now it’s just him, left. Luther, who has to shoulder the guilt of their deaths on his shoulders. 

There will never be enough cats to memorialize this. There will never be enough names or memorials or glory to make up for how much guilt he feels over this.

Luther knows that whenever he gets back to his District, there will be nothing but glory for him. He is no longer the victor that racked up less kills than the outlier tributes, no longer than Victor lost by dishonest means. He is the Victor to rule over all the victors, the ultimate winner. He's everything that District Two has ever wanted him to be.

But none of that matters. It hasn't for years, and it certainly doesn't matter now, now that his entire family is gone and he's killed the man he considers his closest friend in the world.

There is no glory in murdering children, and there is certainly no glory in killing the only people you love. 

(Luther doesn’t know how long he’s going to live beyond the end of the Games, how long he’s going last before putting a bullet into his mouth or poison down his throat, or even if the Capitol will let him pull that off.)

**Vanya**

Vanya wins these Games just like she did her own- by manipulating the wiring of the atmosphere of the Arena itself to change the weather. But unlike with her first Games, she finds every one of her allies and kisses their cooling foreheads before they go. She makes sure to stay and witness their deaths, to hold their hands as they pass away from freezing, to sing off-key lullabies from Five as they slip away into a cold death.

At her Interview, Caesar makes her watch, and it hurts as much as her first interview did, but in a very different way. The first time around she was nauseated with herself, watching as these children died (if indirectly) by her hand.

This time around, she’s watching as she kills people that she cares about, as she sings them to their eternal sleep. She thinks she might have lost her mind a bit in this Arena, killing those that she loved.

Because right now, watching the filmed version of those deaths she thought she remembered- she's not kissing the foreheads of peacefully sleeping people who she killed off with a weather change. She's kissing the burnt, almost unrecognizable foreheads of people who died in giant incendiary blasts caused by Vanya rewiring bombs in the way that Five taught her, but then juiced up by her own knowledge of power amplification, singing old District Five lullabies over corpses that are unrecognizable to any that might have cared about them.

Yeah, she lost her mind in the Arena, a bit. Maybe a bit more than a bit.

(The first piece of music she composes after she gets back to her violin is called _Five_. The second _Klaus_. The third _Allison._ The fourth _Ben_. The fifth _Diego_. The sixth _Luther_.

She plays the pieces to Capitol audiences on her Victory Tour and for the years to come. This isn't the sort of memorial that Luther and Diego might have created, but it's hers. She thinks that, if they were alive, they would understand.)

**Klaus**

When Klaus returns to his apartment after the Victor’s interviews are over, he knows he was not the Victor that everyone wanted to win. He is not the shining hero, like Luther, or actually useful for tech, like Five. He doesn’t provide a good show for new Games, like Allison, he’s not new and shiny, like Vanya or Katniss. He is not even a underdog covered in blood, like Diego. 

Maybe the only person he’s a better Victor than was Ben, and that’s only in the aftermath. Ben went back to Eight and stayed- Klaus provided at least some use for the Capitol as a whore.

...Which he knows he's going to have to go back to, now. Why did he try to survive, again?

Oh, right. To save everyone else from having to go back into that secondary Arena again. To prevent them from having to suffer from President Hargreeves' wrath and coercion.

Then the Avox comes into his room to help him change, to get him ready for bed-

And it’s Dave. Dave, who should have been dead, but is instead a puppet of the Capitol, a pawn in the President's games.

Klaus can’t feel any joy in the news, however. All he can feel is an empty hollow in his chest as he looks at Dave the Avox, who just feels like the President mocking Klaus for everything and everyone he’s lost. Because Dave might be alive, but all of the people that Klaus would have cared about Dave meeting, the family that dreamed of introducing Dave to- they’re all fucking dead.

Ben, Allison, Five, Vanya, Luther, Diego- they’re all gone. Some of them killed each other, some were killed by others, and Allison-

Klaus learned his lessons too well from Allison. He learned them too well from all of them, learned knife skills and strength and cleverness and how to betray someone while staring them right in the eye.

Klaus looks at Dave the Avox, whose tongue has been cut out as all Avoxes’ are, and all he can think about is how Allison’s throat had looked after Klaus had stabbed her through the back of the throat when she’d turned her back for only a moment to check the direction of the last cannon, hitting her in such a way that meant she died almost instantly.

But that blood. All that blood. It had spurted all over his hands as her cannon had boomed and they’d declared him the winner of the Games. Klaus can almost still feel its stickiness against his fingers, even after all the showers they gave him after he emerged from the Arena.

Klaus killed one of his two best friends in the world. He stuck a knife in her neck and murdered her.

That night Klaus buries himself into Dave's arms again, knowing that tomorrow he's just going to become the Capitol's plaything again, and he's never felt more fucking hollow in his life.

**Five**

At the end of the day, it’s no large surprise to find tiny, deadly Five at the Victors’ interviews. He _was_ the one who went into the Games with the highest kill count, after all.

The front row of the audience, usually reserved for Victors, is nearly full, but everyone sitting in those seats seem so ancient compared to the Victors Five has come to know and love. Ben, at 33, was the oldest of his allies and families- these people are nearly all older than him. Five thinks the youngest Victor still alive other than him is Annie, who's lost her mind anyway, and then after that Marlon from Four, and _they're_ Careers. As for outlier Districts, well...

At the end of it all, there are no Victors left to Eight. There are none left to Twelve. Ten has one man left in Miguel, Five has two men in Ivan and Petyr, Eleven has a female Victor in Lily. Three has Five himself and Corinne, a female Victor who won decades ago. Seven has a few, but not many. Six has a couple as well.

And the Careers, well- Two has plenty. So does One. So does Four. But everyone else, who had so few Victors to begin with- this Game has destroyed them.

Twenty three Victors down and there's barely a dent in some Districts. In others, they have lost all or nearly all of their Mentors, their Victors.

And Five killed so many of those Victors, many of them his own allies (his own _family_ , if he lets himself admit it).

Five can’t help but hate himself for not being able to find a way out of this for the people he has come to love, for the broken family he calls his own. He can’t help but hate that he didn’t find a way to rebel before they were standing on those pedestals with the timer counting down.

Caesar smiles at Five and he doesn't smile back. That doesn't stop Caesar from soldiering on with the interview, though.

"So, Five," Caesar says, voice dripping with sickeningly sweet confidence, "You're the ultimate Victor. After your performance just a few years ago, I don't think many were underestimating you, but still- you're so young! The youngest Victor in the competition, just like your first time. How does it feel to have pulled off the same miracle twice?"

Miracle- his wins were the furthest things from miracles. They were utterly horrible, monstrous things.

Oh, Five is a monster, he knows. He killed his family in the Arena, even if he didn’t watch it while it happened. There is no way to compartmentalize and excuse what he did, this time around. These weren’t strangers- these were people he loved. 

The one consolation he can take- moral, emotional, whatever helps him sleep at night (though, to be honest, he knows that nothing will help him sleep at night)- is that killing his family finally helped them escape the wrath of the Capitol, helped them escape that next Arena.

And as for Five, and the Arena he now finds himself in-

After the interview, during the Victory Tour, he burns with a rage brighter than any fire Katniss ever set. He is going to find a way to avenge his family’s deaths, he knows it. He won’t rest until President Hargreeves and the Capitol pay for what they’ve done.

He doesn’t care if he dies in the process. He did what he had to in order to survive the 75th Arena, but he did it knowing that there would be no escape on the other end, that he would forever be stuck in another Arena.

Dying to get rid of that Arena is okay, in his books. It will be some sort of twisted justice for the family he loved and killed.

Let the world burn around him and then burn him- he doesn't care. As long as they get justice. As long as he can turn senseless slaughter into meaning.

(And he has to, because if he has to spend the rest of his life alone, without his family, then he might very well go mad.)

**Allison**

Betrayal still works, Allison learns to her horrible advantage. Betrayal always works.

This time around, though, the betrayal isn’t based on District allyship or on sex appeal. Instead, it’s based around actual trust. Actual, family love, or at least as close as a Victor can get. Allison’s knives sink into the skin of Vanya, of Five, of Ben. Diego’s knives sink into most of their enemies and then into Luther.

(Betrayal always works, especially when it's with people who trust you as much as you trust them.)

In the end, she doesn’t have to kill Klaus, which is one small mercy- Diego does, in a mercy kill of sorts. And then she kills _him_ in the final battle, the two of them trapped on top of the Cornucopia.

She wins because she knows the exact weakness in the uniform they have to wear- and she’d planted poisonous juice on his collar a few days ago, slowly sapping his strength so that when they finally fought, he stumbled to his knees with her first blow and then she'd made him into a clean kill.

Allison emerges the Victor, and it’s the most bitter taste she’s ever experienced. 

(In the weeks following, she will go home to District One- which isn't home anymore, it hasn't been since her first win- to Claire. She will hold her daughter, who will ask her how Uncle Klaus is doing, and Allison will sob into her pillow that night, because this final Arena is one she is never, ever going to escape.

Claire is Reaped ten years later, and Allison stands there and she knows, dread thick in her stomach, that it doesn't matter how much her daughter has trained. It never has.

Claire is going into that Arena, and Allison is going to lose every person she's ever called family to the Games.)

**Katniss**

In no universe will the Capitol let the Mockingjay be the Victor. She is too powerful a symbol of rebellion to allow that to happen.

She dies before the end of the Games, over and over, in every world except for the one where the Rebellion destroys the Arena.

**None**

The biggest difference this year is that there is a pack going around, an alliance of more than just two or three members, but it's not a career pack, which were only ever six members max anyway. No, this time with the biggest pack is one that is completely unexpected to sponsors and viewers alike. After all, who in their right mind but suspect two careers to ally themselves with five outlier Victors, only two of which are famous for their flashy, bloody kills? Why would they ally themselves with a Victor who is widely considered the most useless tribute this year, the youngest Victor from District Eight? Why would they ally themselves with an older man who only won his games by poisoning his district partner? Why would they ally themselves with a girl who literally only won two years ago, and through a fluke of weather?

Then the pack emerges from the Bloodbath intact, and all of Panem starts to understand just why this pack is together. Because these people are not the scared tributes that they all witnessed during their respective games. No, these are killers, warped and changed by the end of their games and then by their lives after the Arena.

Allison, Luther, and Diego slash their ways out of the Bloodbath, carving through multiple victors, such as the morphlings from District Six or Wiress from District Three, and Five and Vanya get to work rewiring bombs right behind them, working together to work as quickly as possible, to get out of there as quickly as possible. Ben and Klaus, easily the Victors in this pack considered the softest, work together to take down Hazel from District One all by themselves, working in tandem to hit him while he's down. Hazel gets in a lucky slash across Klaus’s stomach as he goes down, but go down he does, leaving only three careers in the game that aren't in the pack. There's Enobaria, from Two, and Finnick and Mags from Four, the latter of which isn't even going to be much of a threat.

-

But this luck can’t last, anyone watching knows, because pack luck never lasts too long. Whether from the Arena itself or the people in the pack turning on each other, every pack eventually breaks.

-

Vanya is the first of the pack to die, but Five follows quickly afterwards.

See, the Victors outside of the pack who are still in the games aren't stupid. They are Victors for a reason. They won their own games by killing, or by figuring out ways to get themselves to the end after their biggest threats had killed each other first.

A seven-person Alliance has strength on its side, yes, but it also has the disadvantage of painting the biggest target on your back. People’s automatic instinct is to get rid of you first, to break up that Alliance, before it is to target less threatening people.

And though, to the viewing audience, it may seem as if Allison, Luther, or even Diego are the biggest threats within the alliance, everyone in that Arena knows that the biggest threat is Five. Not only does the youngest Victor in the arena have the highest kill count, he is also incredibly clever as well as a clear draw for sponsors, who are likely to shy away from sponsoring older Victors. Therefore, Five is utterly dangerous.

So it is no surprise that when Enobaria, Finnick, and a few of the other Victors attack their camp, Vanya and Five find themselves the victims of the attack. While their own pack manages to kill Johanna Mason and severely injure Enobaria, Vanya and Five are found at the end, his throat slit, and a knife through her back.

This also, in a way, takes out the ability of the pack to utilize the bombs that Vanya and Five rewired, as they all carry very little mechanical knowledge among them. This doesn't quite cripple them, considering the fact that they are all still pretty adept with the weapons that they have otherwise, but it does injure their ability to stage traps a bit.

-

It's actually not other Victors, but rather mutts that get Ben next. Because Klaus, Ben, and Diego are hunting for food while Allison and Luther guard the campsite, and creatures emerge from the trees. At first, one cannot even tell what they are mutations of, what kind of cursed crossbreed they might somehow represent. They have fanged maws, long claws, and scaly back sides that a blade could not strike through, and as a final, horrifying addition, they have long tentacles flying out of their back ends, tentacles that are as thick around as Luther's upper arm.

And they kill Ben before Klaus or Diego can even strike, tentacles strangling him and crushing him to death. Diego flings a knife at the tentacles but they do nothing, and soon enough the two of them find themselves running back to camp, grabbing Allison, Luther, and as many bags as they can carry before running across the Arena until they reach a more desert-like section of the Arena that the creature doesn't seem to want to enter.

And then, they make a new camp. And they wait.

-

And then Klaus dies a couple of days later of blood poisoning from the wound in his stomach, from which Luther puts him out of his misery.

(Allison had asked Klaus if she'd wanted him to do it, but he'd given her a grimace that almost approximated a smile and said through labored breaths, "Let one of them do it, Allie. Please."

And so Luther had slit Klaus' throat clean open, putting him out of his misery, and Allison had held Klaus' hand through it. She'd gotten his blood on her hands, even if she hadn't killed him, and after it was all over she'd had to sit back and just breathe for a moment.)

-

After that, the alliance between Enobaria and Finnick seems to have crumbled. The next time they face Enobaria, it's when she's put her blade into Luther's back. Allison takes out Enobaria, whose leg injury they gave her a few days ago, and Allison is left with just her and Diego, both of them with their knives and death in their hearts, and they're both such nice Victors for the Capitol to crown again. 

"For Klaus," Panem watches Allison say to Diego, and it feels almost as if an oath is being sworn, despite the fact that they aren't shaking hands. "For Ben."

"For Vanya," Diego says, something very, very old and very, very dead in his eyes. "For Luther and for Five."

And then they hunt, taking out a couple of straggling Victors- Cecelia from Eight, for instance, or Four, Finnick's District partner.

\- 

Over the course of the next couple of days, they bump into Katniss and Haymitch, who is on his last legs- literally so, as there's a stab wound in his right leg that Katniss wrapped a tourniquet around, but that is clearly hampering his ability to play the game.

They swear a quick, three day alliance between the four of them- either they will stay allies for three days or, if the Game is cut down to just the four of them before the end of the three days, then they will break the alliance then.

(Those watching have no idea which will happen first, and many are unsure of what outcome they should even be rooting for.)

\- 

By the start of the third week (and the third day of the alliance), they are down to just five tributes in the Arena: Allison, Diego, Katniss, Haymitch, and Finnick.

Finnick, the last of the careers, kills Haymitch in a surprise attack that's almost gentle, to a fellow Victor, as he runs his trident through Haymitch's back. And Diego, in turn, kills Finnick back, in an attack that's almost merciful, his knife making a clean, deep slash across Finnick's throat, as if killing a cow.

And this is where the final alliance crumbles. This is where the Quarter Quell breaks the final pack.

Katniss clearly doesn't see Diego and Finnick's kills as gentle or merciful, though, as she instantly fires off an arrow into Diego's chest, shattering open his ribs and heart, and in the moment that she does-

Allison stabs Katniss, too, and it isn't pretty. It isn't quick. She drags the knife through Katniss' chest and watches as she gurgles through the blood until the final cannon booms.

(Allison was a Career, once upon a time, in her first Arena. Blood doesn't faze her. Gore doesn't faze her.)

Then Allison raises her hand to her chest, almost as if catching her breath.

"We present to you your Victor," comes the voice of Gamesmaker Heavensbee, "Allison Leonidas of District One!"

And then Allison collapses to the ground, dropping dead with her hand held against her heart in a two-fingered salute known to any child who has gone through the Academies of District One.

And there is no Victor of the Seventy Fifth Hunger Games.

-

(In the coming weeks, as the Districts riot and rebel with or without the support of District 13, all raising their hands in One's salute and whistling Rue's tune, people will realize that Katniss poisoned Allison and Diego's food on that final day with a weed that would sweep them gently away into death by the time they fell asleep.

At the end of the day, there is always one final way to rebel against the Capitol. Deny them your life, deny them their Victor, and you have denied them their symbol. You have denied them the power they need to keep the Districts intact.)

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! I've been writing so much happy stuff lately (plays for the DWTS 'verse or the much happier ending to the fem!Hargreeves 'verse) that I've lost a bit of motivation. Writing something this dark and angsty really helped right my writing motivation/inspiration a bit, and it was fun to explore all of the possible endings and the dynamics of winning the Quell with Victors playing v. winning a Games with only new children playing. (Not gonna lie, I've been watching a shitton of old seasons of Survivor and a lot of the "strategy" involved in the QQ was based in what I noticed strategy-wise in returning-players seasons of Survivor.)
> 
> But yeah, thanks for reading and I hoped you enjoyed it!


End file.
